


can feel your anger from way across the sea

by celaenos



Series: chirp on about good bones [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Divergence - Post-Hogwarts, Friends With Benefits, Gen, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Multi, Platonic Relationships, Post-Hogwarts, Road Trips, friends who sometimes give each other orgasams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 04:01:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17800679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celaenos/pseuds/celaenos
Summary: She doesn’t think about Draco, locked up tight in his big old house with just his mother, his father on trial. Or Astoria, shoulders squared as she saunters through the halls of Hogwarts. She sinks down underneath the water, stubbornly opening her eyes despite the stinging chlorine and lets out a whoop that turns into a cry.But she is underneath the water, and no one else can hear her.[pansy, after hogwarts]





	can feel your anger from way across the sea

**Author's Note:**

> so. whoops. i had only planned on one pansy pov bit before starting the longer story, but i got to 8k and realized that i still had like 3 years left to cover with pans and the greengrass girls and so i decided to just split it and put something out now rather than wait who knows how long while i cobble things together in between homework. 
> 
> it's (fingers crossed) my last semester and i will finally be graduating this spring if all goes well, so i want to challenge myself to write more than i have in previous semesters, but i'm not promising anything bc school is important and it's the last (hopefully) haul. so! enjoy! there will be one more pansy pov one shot after this and THEN the main story. thank you and apologies and i hope you enjoy.

Pansy kicks at the tire of the ridiculous yellow monstrosity that Daph picked out and huffs. “You’ve got to be joking.”

“Not in the slightest,” Daphne grins. Jumping up and clapping her hands and then leaping onto Theo’s back. “It’s perfect.”

“It’s _hideous,_ ” he groans.

“The ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” Daphne agrees, though she is fucking _beaming_ as she says it.

“I am not riding around in that thing,” Pansy declares primly. “Also, none of us knows how to drive an American car. None of us knows how to drive a muggle car at all.”

“We’ll get loads of practice very soon!” Daphne says, and leaps off Theo’s back, then gives the confused looking salesman a wad of paper cash that Pansy has no idea where she procured—she suspects Astoria—and then the thing is _theirs._

“Apparently,” Daphne says, sliding into the driver’s seat and turning it on like the man showed her. “A 1973 Camaro is _very cool._ It’s what muggles call, a classic.”

“Muggles, are idiots,” Pansy says as the engine roars to life. “Merlin’s beard, we’re going to die in fucking _America_.”

“Better than in Hogwarts,” Theo offers and slumps down in the backseat. He slides the pair of sunglasses he purchased when they bought the car down onto his face and sticks it up at the sun, like a cat.

Daphne hits the gas pedal, cheering like a maniac as Pansy screams and closes her eyes.

…

…

They get arrested.

Well, almost. Pansy mutters a memory spell underneath her breath and tells Daphne to _fucking drive more carefully_ and then they’re back on the thing muggles call a highway, Daphne sticking her tongue out of the side of her mouth in concentration. Pansy rolls her eyes. She has no idea what possessed her to agree to this idiotic road trip idea. She should have just stayed home, like Draco.

Pansy complains about hunger and Daphne says that there is a place up ahead. Pansy asks _again_ why they are making this a trip of Muggle America and not Wizarding America and Theo seconds her.

“Because, I promised Astoria,” Daphne says, and Pansy and Theo fall silent. Pansy loves that girl just as much as Daphne does. She’s known her just as long—all the twenty-eight families have. Theo looks like he would love nothing more than to protest, especially once Daphne pulls the Camaro into a greasy highway diner parking lot, but he slides his sunglasses up and rolls his eyes and walks beside them silently.

“The _whole_ trip isn’t going to be just Muggle America though, right?” he hedges, once a cheerful and plump middle-aged woman has taken their orders and walked away.

Daphne frowns down at the menu. “No, probably not the whole thing,” she agrees.

“Thank fuck,” Pansy mutters. Daphne throws a napkin at her head.

The summer air is hot and stifling with no breeze to speak of and she slouches down further in the sticky fake leather booth, watching Daph and Theo argue about the proper way to best make coffee. Pansy knows, had known, since the moment that Daphne _apparated_ into her bedroom and announced that she wasn't going back to finish Hogwarts, that they were running away. Putting as much distance between them as possible from the aftershocks of the war and the place that was their home for the last seven years, and all the people they knew who lived within it. Pansy hadn’t argued with her for a moment. The thought of going back to Hogwarts and pretending that the last year hadn’t happened sounded unbearable. She still remembers the feeling in her gut as the entire Great Hall turned and looked at her as though she was Voldemort himself when she asked _why,_ just fucking _why_ exactly they should all give up their lives for _HarryfuckingPotter._ Potter, who brought some new horror on to the school every single year. Potter, who made it impossible to just _study_ and take their lessons without being an attention seeking smartass. Potter, who made Draco agonizingly annoying to be around. Potter, who Pansy had no reason whatsoever to be loyal to. Potter, instead of Daph, or Theo, or Draco, or _Astoria._ Why should they all die just to keep him alive? One boy for all of them combined. It had seemed utterly ridiculous, so she had said so.

Astoria had yelled at her for it every single fucking day since. So. As much as Pansy loves her, a road trip sounded a million times better than going back to Hogwarts and dealing with Astoria trying to both defend Pansy from everyone and yell at her all in one breath.

With each mile that passes since they left London and the others, Pansy can feel herself sitting up straighter, smiling a little brighter. Like a weight has been lifted off her chest, and she can finally breathe properly again. As they drive down the open highway, Pansy wonders why it was so easy for them to leave despite all the things they have back home to ground themselves to; Draco and her mother, and Millie and Tracey and parties, and the fact that all of their parents are being investigated. Hogwarts is nothing more than embers and ruins. It's going to be made up in such a way that has no room left for them, probably, and they’re free in the worst sort of way. Thinking about it too much makes Pansy’s head hurt, but the Camaro is so full of silence that it's hard not to. Daphne just drives and drives and drives, hardly ever saying a word. Pansy wants to ask her what she is thinking about. What they are going to do now that the war is over and they're still alive. She can feel the questions pushing against her throat, eager to be spit out, but Daphne keeps her gaze forward, humming along softly to the radio, so Pansy swallows them down and keeps riding, silent. She twiddles her thumbs and watches the yellow paint zip past them as they drive.

…

…

“I’m going to vomit,” Theo warns, and then does exactly what he says.

“Gross,” Pansy hisses and jumps away from him. Daphne grimaces but moves over to rub his back and quickly spells the mess away.

“Muggle hamburgers are horrible,” Theo yells into the night.

“Mine tasted alright,” Pansy chides him. Daphne reaches over and smacks her.

…

…

They waltz into a hotel called the Marriott and Theo immediately flops down onto one of the beds. He rolls over and promptly ignores them both. Pansy flops onto the other bed as Daphne walks around and opens everything and pokes about in the bathroom. She comes back a few moments later, wearing only a small t-shirt and her underwear, grinning. Pansy is suddenly far less tired.

Daph doesn’t give her any warning, just jumps up and then straddles Pansy and then her mouth is on Pansy’s neck doing sinful things that they figured out makes Pansy hitch her breath and _groan_ halfway through fourth year.

They started doing this during their third; well, not quite _this,_ as Daphne slips her hand into Pansy’s underwear and tugs it off, her slender fingers finding slickness. But the kissing part, on the regular. Her first kiss had been with Draco, of course. The pair of ‘em all of ten years old and bored and curious as they watched their parents dance in ball gowns at the foot of the stairs in Malfoy Manor. Draco had turned over to Pansy and frowned. _Have you done that yet?_ he’d asked, pointing towards Gemma Farley and Terrence Higgs, hidden underneath the stairwell. _No,_ Pansy had scoffed, though she watched Gemma curiously. _Have you?_ Draco had shaken his head and then held Pansy’s gaze. She knew what he was going to do a moment before it happened, she always did. She had plenty of time to shove him away, but she didn’t. They knocked their lips together and held them there for a few seconds, then pushed away, frowning. _Well, want to go get some chocolate?_ Draco asked and Pansy had raced him.

She won. Always did.

Daphne waltzed into their dorm room at the beginning of year three and declared that she wanted to make sure that she knew what she was doing with sex things. Pansy had balked and fallen off the bed and Daphne had rolled her eyes. _Not now, obviously. But there’s a lot to work up to. I asked Gemma about some things. We should probably practice._ Pansy had frowned at her and then stopped frowning once Daphne sort of sat on top of her instead of only pressing their mouths together as Draco had. It was mostly like that though, eventually, and Daphne had frowned in the same way that Draco had and then dragged Pansy off to dinner.

There had been significantly less frowning on both their parts, a week later. After Daphne had gone around and done some research and asked older girls questions that Pansy never would have embarrassed herself to admit that she didn’t already know the answers to. It became a regular thing: practice. Then it became a regular stress relief, then they both started dating other people, on and off. Pansy fooled around with Draco once or twice; Adrian Pucey; and Tracey once, on a dare. Millie then made a huge stink about being the only one in their dorm who Pansy hadn’t kissed, so she knocked her down on top of the bed in front of them all and kissed her for all she was worth, Daph and Tracey clapping and wolf-whistling while Millie went beet red.

They’ve never really talked about it but they aren’t dating and Pansy doesn’t think that they ever will be. She’s not sure that she wants them to be. Dating someone sounds horrible. She likes this; easy friendship that doesn’t require thinking about it anymore and orgasms when she wants them. Pansy doesn’t want anything else.

Daph lowers herself down between Pansy’s legs and she lets out a moan the second her lips make contact, and then Theo rolls over and throws a pillow at them. Pansy moans again louder on purpose.

…

…

The end of August comes too fast. It rolls in heavy and grey, the long days stretching out with a taste of preemptive nostalgia. Everyone else is going back to Hogwarts, or hunkering down in their homes and Pansy is with Daphne and Theo, lounging by a pool in Seattle, Washington.

She ignored her mother’s last three letters and sent one to Draco instead this morning. Daphne and Theo are far more dutiful children than she is and Pansy doesn’t feel guilty about it. Her mother has never seemed to want or expect more, Pansy doesn’t either.

It’s possible that there is something wrong with her.

“I’m going in,” she declares and tosses her sunglasses to the side. She walks over to the taller diving board and does a perfect, splash-less dive. When she comes up for air, Daph and Theo are clapping at her like posh twats. Pansy reaches out and tugs Theo into the water and he screams, high-pitched and grating.

“MY _HAIR,_ ” he screams. “PANSY!”

She doesn’t think about Draco, locked up tight in his big old house with just his mother, his father on trial. Or Astoria, shoulders squared as she saunters through the halls of Hogwarts. She sinks down underneath the water, stubbornly opening her eyes despite the stinging chlorine and lets out a whoop that turns into a cry.

But she is underneath the water, and no one else can hear her.

…

…

She walks into their hotel room—five stars, Sunny LA—and sees Theo’s hand down his pants, eyes glazed over, groaning softly. He only goes half-embarrassed to be caught—she and Daph have done way worse, right in front of him many times over. That’s before this trip, even. Pansy realizes in this moment that she’s never actually fooled around with Theo before. She considers the idea for a moment then walks towards him, slow, giving him ample time to collect himself and tell her to shove off or remove more clothes, whichever he chooses.

Theo shucks his pants in one fast motion. Pansy gives him a crooked grin and lowers herself down onto the floor. He kind of sounds like Draco, once she’s got him in her mouth, which Pansy finds hilarious for reasons she doesn’t want to think about for too long. Once she’s got him making these soft little puffs of noise, she pulls away, smirking at the agonized whine that he releases. Pansy tugs her skirt off and kicks her underwear down to the floor and crawls up Theo’s body, pushing him down onto the bed and lowering herself directly over his face. Theo wastes no time lapping up at her and Pansy rocks back against him. She’s pretty sure that she hears the door open at one point but she grips down on Theo’s hair to keep him right where she wants him, ignoring the noise. If it’s a maid, Pansy does not give a single fuck and if it’s Daphne, she cares even less.

“Well, this is new,” Daphne says, the most RP sounding tinge to her voice that Pansy has ever heard before. She’s putting it on deliberately.

“Join us or leave,” Pansy orders, and pinches Theo to get him moving again.

For a second, she thinks that Daph leaves, which is a shame, but then Theo hisses up into her center, stalling for a beat before resuming with vigor and she knows that Daphne’s taken her place on the floor. Pansy comes before Theo does, but he’s not too long after. Pansy rolls off him shaking and grinning and Daphne slides up the bed, getting herself in the middle of them.

“Fuck,” Theo breathes, running a hand through his hair.

“Not yet,” Daphne says, devilish. She straddles Pansy and grinds down into her center and Pansy hisses as she moves to start matching her rhythm. Theo watches them, aroused. Pansy slips a hand down towards him and he groans, knocking his head back into the pillow. A few seconds later, Daphne tugs at him with intent, pushes at Pansy till she’s got her sitting up and she can get her mouth down onto her instead. She pulls at Theo till he gets himself behind her and Pansy watches them both, her whole body on fire. They should have been doing this ages ago. Theo slides himself into Daphne slowly and she groans into Pansy’s center as Pansy arches her back and lets out a hiss to the ceiling. A minute later Theo shifts so that he can capture her mouth above Daph; the three of them stay entangled for the rest of the afternoon, trading off positions and places until none of them can move anymore—too spent. Pansy is boneless and happy when she falls asleep against Theo’s back, Daph’s arms snaking their way around her middle.

She doesn’t know why she didn’t think to bring Theo into this arrangement before, but it’s a hell of a lot more fun now. Far easier too, then trying to sneak around in the dorms would have been. Thank Merlin they’re not at Hogwarts anymore.

She sends Draco a very explicit letter detailing their exploits the next day and he sends her one back chiding them all for being promiscuous sum. Pansy reads it out loud as they pass through New Mexico, Theo driving and Daphne laughing her ass off from the backseat.

…

…

They run out of gas in some backwoods part of northern Pennsylvania.

Pansy groans and sits down in the grass on the side of the highway while Daphne and Theo stick their heads together and try to spell the car back into working again.

A muggle pulls over to help them. Pansy watches the way that Daph and Theo interact with him, kind of stand-offish, not overly rude but overtly wary. She knows that she probably acts the same, if someone were to sit down in the dirty grass and watch her. It’s weird, being here. It’s weird how little of a divide there is between muggles and wizards in this country. It’s weird that this place seems as though it was hardly touched by the war at all.

Feels like it, anyhow.

The guy grins and fills their tank up with a spare can that he keeps in his trunk for emergencies, and he says that it’s enough to get them to the nearest gas station. He gives them a strange wave that could mean anything and Pansy glares at him as he walks away.

If her mother were here, she’d have cursed him out of boredom. Or habitual cruelty. Pansy wonders what it says about the three of them now that they just sort of stare and act rude instead. Maybe it doesn’t say anything at all.

…

…

The rest of the year goes by a lot like that. Pansy refuses to learn how to drive and Daphne and Theo delight in it, though there is an unmentioned agreement never to say so to anyone back home. Daphne speeds, which isn’t surprising. Theo drives like an old grandmother. Pansy sits in the back or in the front and ignores them both or pesters them both, depending on her mood. They stop eating in diners—Theo refuses to ever set foot inside of another one after the vomit incident. Pansy learns about Muggle grocery stores and starts eating crisps straight out of the bag as they shop, ladies with ugly red vests and name tags hollering at her.

They’re traveling like muggles, with the car. Living like muggles, in the hotels, except for that they run into wizards all the time. The distinctions don’t seem to be as different in America. Wizards and muggles blur together so that it’s sometimes hard to tell until one of them whips out a wand and curses an alligator.

(In Florida. Pansy decides that she detests Florida. Theo thrives there; he eats nothing but oranges for a solid week.)

They grow uncomfortable with muggles and find a cousin of a cousin of Theo’s and stay the night with them. Pansy feels like herself again, walking inside a house and _feeling_ it respond to her presence. Eating like a wizard, listening to news about the reconstruction across the pond after the war. It shows how strange this whole trip has been and shocks all three of them. Even Daphne’s’ resolve to keep a promise to her sister falters.

They start exploring wizarding towns afterwards and avoid muggle ones whenever possible. Pansy doesn’t know what that says about them, either.

She sends scattered letters to Draco throughout the year and ignores her mother’s Floo calls. (They’re hardly ever by fires, anyway). She answers only Astoria with any sort of regularity. Apparently, befriending a Weasley and Longbottom wasn’t enough for her last year, now she’s gone and made friends with _Granger,_ of all people as well. Pansy rolls her eyes and calls her an idiot and tells her to give them all hell.

Astoria sends her back a _Howler_ and it’s full of an enchantment that leaves Pansy’s face smeared with black ink for a solid week. Pansy will never forgive her.

…

…

Theo is growing sick of traveling; he’s snappish and grumpy and starts sleeping in his own bed more often than not. His attitude sours the mood of the whole trip. The Christmas holidays are approaching and Pansy suspects that she should be missing her mother, but she doesn’t. She only misses Draco and Astoria. Maybe Millie, Tracey, and Blaise, some days.

She doesn’t miss Crabbe or Goyle at all.

“Merlin, no,” Theo scoffs, when Pansy asks if that is what's bothering him. “Those knobs? This has been a marvelous few months without their gaping maws.”

“Gaping maws?” Daphne chuckles, from the driver’s seat.

“Shove off,” he says. Pansy watches the way that his smile dips into a frown only moments later and she knows, in that moment, that he is going to leave soon. She curls away from him and sulks.

…

…

Theo _apparates_ home the day before Christmas. He says that he might come back, but he looks down at the ground as he does it.

Pansy kicks at the tire of the Camaro. “I’m done riding around in that thing playing at being muggle.”

Daphne’s shoulders slump, just a tick, but Pansy doesn’t take it back.

…

…

They leave the Camaro in a parking lot of a hotel, the keys still inside, and _apparate_ to a wizarding neighborhood in Vermont. Pansy stuffs her face with food and links her arms with Daph and drinks so much butterbeer that she throws up, after. Daphne holding her hair back and yelling at her for making her do this all the while. They sleep in a wizard hotel, the building alive and thrumming comfortably underneath them and Pansy decides that maybe she doesn’t care much whether or not muggles live or die, but she thinks that they are uncultured swine who don’t know how to take care of their homes and she can never live inside of one that isn’t alive again. She says as such out loud and Daphne rolls over from the other bed to look at her.

“It is a bit strange,” she agrees.

“Do you care?” Pansy asks.

Daphne squints at her. “About the houses? I just said that I did.”

“No,” Pansy bites down at her bottom lip. “About muggles?”

“Honestly? Not really. I’ve never seen what all the fuss was about one way or another. Astoria makes some good points, but… Mother and Father have, too. It’s how things work, being separate. How they _have._ I probably should care more, but I don’t. I never did. Maybe that’s worse.”

“How’s it worse?”

“I don’t have a side,” Daphne shrugs. “The war was inconvenient only that it made Astoria and my parents fight. I didn’t care one way or the other which way things landed, so long as they stopped and started getting along again.”

“Really?” Pansy asks, sitting up on her elbow and looking over at Daphne.

“I don’t know,” Daphne says, looking up at the ceiling. “I suppose… I don’t really know enough muggles to care. Maybe I would have, then. Astoria didn’t, though. Not till last year. And she’s been on about this since forever.”

Pansy slumps back down and looks up at the ceiling as well. “My mother says that the Dark Lord was off his rocker. He was a poor orphan who wanted power. She told me once that he wasn’t worth all the fuss he made. The Gaunt family were one of the twenty-eight, but she always said they were wankers and insane. Not worth the title. If he hadn’t been Slytherin’s descendant, no one would have ever given him the time of day.”

“Dangerous words,” Daphne warns.

“She never would have said them out loud to anyone else. She would have had my tongue and much worse if I had.”

“Still,” Daphne says, uncomfortable.

“Oh, come off it,” Pansy snaps. “He’s dead. Potter killed him. You saw the body, same as me. Just as pathetic as Dumbledore's. Crazy old men thinking that they can make the world bend to their whims.”

“Go to sleep, Pans,” Daphne orders. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. It’s stupid.”

“Everyone else probably is, back home.”

“Which is why we’re not there,” Daphne reminds her.

“Yeah,” Pansy mutters. “Goody for us.”

“You wanted to come just as much as I did,” Daphne snaps. “I’m not the one that everyone hates right now.”

“Fuck you,” Pansy says, and rolls over towards the window.

…

…

They don’t talk for three days.

Pansy wants to _scream._

…

…

Pansy steps off of the train, Daphne half a jump ahead of her, and everything around them is grey; the buildings, the streets, the skies, the snow, even the people. Pansy grimaces at the sight and reaches over to pinch Daphne’s side. She doesn’t get through the lining in her thick coat, so she smacks at her arm instead. Daphne huffs and doesn’t turn back to look at her, taking in her new surroundings.

“Everything is miserable here,” Pansy announces. “It’s all just grey. Except for the cabs.” Their distilled yellow is the brightest thing in all of Chicago that Pansy has seen thus far. Muggles did one thing right, perhaps. It’s a changeup if nothing else. She pushes at Daphne to get her moving; the cold is like a physical thing trying to steal the breath from her mouth. “Where are we going?”

“To explore the city of big shoulders,” Daphne says, pretentiously.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It’s from a muggle poem.”

“It’s stupid. Let’s go back to the beach.”

“We can’t spend a year at the beach.”

“Sure we can.”

“I want to see other things.”

“Why?”

“Because, all we’ve ever seen is London and Hogwarts and family holiday trips. I’m sick of not caring one way or another. I want an opinion for myself.”

It’s the first that either of them has mentioned their fight a week ago and Pansy goes quiet.

“Fine,” she says, after a few minutes of walking. “But if we’re going to freeze our arses off in Chicago in the middle of winter, then you’re buying me a butterbeer.”

“Deal,” Daphne declares.

And just like that, their fight is over. It’s how their fights tend to go. Cruel and quick and then done with, mostly.

“What’s there to do here?” Pansy asks, once they’ve stepped into a shop. The witch behind the counter gives them a flier and it sings at them. “No way,” Pansy groans, watching Daphne’s face light up with excitement.

“We’re going to a play,” Daphne declares.

“Daph—”

“We can go shopping first,” Daphne offers, wiggling her eyebrows beguilingly. Pansy huffs. The prospect is annoyingly enticing, just as Daphne knew that it would be. They walk over and find a booth and sit down. Pansy sips at her butterbeer too quickly, trying to chase the cold from her bones, and burns her tongue. “Ria’s got her _apperation_ license, right?”

“What are you asking me for? She’s your sister.”

“I’m going to Floo her,” Daphne declares and slides out of the booth to rent some powder from the bartender. Pansy ignores her, sipping at her drink and trying to will the chill away from her insides, thinking about how she hates Chicago until Daphne comes and drags her over to the fire, Astoria’s grinning face sticking up at them.

“PANS!” she says, full of joy. As always, Pansy can’t help but grin back at her instantly. No one else—not even Daph—can pull that sort of reaction out of her. Daphne reaches up and grabs her own drink again, sipping at it and only half paying attention to her sister as she chatters away about Hogwarts. A voice comes up behind her and Astoria turns around and says something and then her face is back and Pansy’s hair goes on edge.

“Where are you?” she asks.

“Oh… the common room.”

“Ours?” Pansy asks, and Daphne whips her head around and stares at the odd tone to Pansy’s voice. She has an inkling and it won’t go away and she can’t stop it.

“Um,” Astoria shifts and she looks guilty. Same way as when she was nine and snuck into Daph’s room and riffled through her things and the two of them caught her. “No…” she says, quiet.

“Where are you, Ria?” Daphne asks, sharp.

“I told you. Common room.”

“Whose?” Pansy asks, though she’s pretty sure that she knows the answer. Longbottom. Granger. Fucking _Weasleys._

“Ginny’s,” Astoria says, haughty, now.

“Merlin’s beard,” Pansy hisses. Daphne sits up on her knees and launches into a lecture, telling Astoria to go back to their room and not to go into the Gryffindor’s again. To stop hanging out with Weasleys and Longbottoms and goddamn mudbloods, and to never, _ever_ to tell their mother that she did so in the first place. Astoria sits there silent and then calmly calls her sister a racist cunt and hangs up, leaving Daphne with a full breath’s worth of more arguments stalled. She stares at the empty spot where her little sister’s head had been like she doesn’t know what to do anymore. They’ve fought a lot in the last few years, cruel and quick like Pansy and Daph’s fights go, but they don’t make up as easy. Pansy loves Astoria without having to think about it—they don’t really fight. Bicker, sure, but she never gets into the rows with Ria that she has with Daphne, or that the pair of them have with each other, not even when they’re at each other’s throats for weeks. Pansy flits between them both with ease, refusing to deal with their nonsense and loving them both regardless, no matter how mad it makes them.

Now, she slips her hand into Daphne’s and tugs her upwards. “Come on, idiot,” she says, pushing every bit of fondness into her tone that she can manage. “You promised to take me shopping before this dumb play.”

“Pans—”

“She’ll get over it.”

“She’s never sounded like that before,” Daph says, she sounds young. When Pansy turns around she sees that Daph’s got her arms wrapped around herself, she looks young, too.

 _Fuck._ Fuck this stupid war and everything that it has ruined. Draco's parents and Astoria and Daph's relationship; all the things that Pansy grew up not having to think about or worry would disappear. Fuck Voldemort, and fuck Dumbledore, and fuck the professors at Hogwarts, and the idiots at the Ministry, and all the muggles and Death Eaters. Fuck all of them. 

“You were rude to her friends,” Pansy says to Daphne, thinking about the way Ria's face had twisted when Daph said mudblood and all of them knew she was talking about Granger. She's only ever seen that protective, defensive look on Ria's face in relation to Daph, or Pansy before today. Whatever has been happening in the last year, Astoria is serious. These people matter to her now, and if they matter to Ria, then Pansy can't shit on them in the same way anymore. Simple as that. 

Might not have been the smartest answer, from the way that Daph’s head whips up and her face goes hard and mean. “She’s always been emotional," Pansy adds, quick. "She loves you, she’s just mad.”

“I hate those fucking Gryffindors,” Daphne complains. “If she’d never been friends with them none of this would have happened.”

“Maybe,” Pansy says, tugging on her coat.

“What?” Daphne follows Pansy out into the grey, miserable cold.

“I dunno,” Pansy wonders. Thoughts coming out of her mouth unformed and slow. “She might have been like this anyway. ‘Member when she found that baby bird?”

“Ugh, that thing was disgusting.”

“Yeah, but she wouldn’t let anyone hurt it. She tried to bring it back to life for weeks. And that cat. And those first-year Hufflepuffs she tutored that one time. She’s always been like this. I think… I think regardless of Weasley and the rest, she’d have called you a racist cunt if you were being one anyway.”

“Fuck you,” Daphne snaps.

“I didn’t say that I wasn’t one too.”

“Are you?” Daphne asks, opening the door to a wizarding shop and tugging Pansy inside.

Pansy shrugs. “Probably.”

“I’m being serious.”

“No. Yes. I dunno, I’m seventeen, I think it’s too early to tell.”

“What the fuck does that even—”

“I’m on this trip for a reason too, Daph. I want to form my own opinions just the same as you do. Not my mother’s. Not Draco’s. Not yours. Not Astoria’s. Sure as shit not Dumbledore’s or the Dark Lord’s. Mine.”

“What do yours say then?”

“Muggles are idiots,” Pansy shrugs and walks towards a slinky black dress, running her fingers through the material and sighing. “But I don’t think that they deserve to die over it, on the whole.” She holds the dress up against her. “What do you think of this one?”

“It’s the middle of winter.”

“Yes, I know. What do you think of the dress?”

“You’ll freeze your arse off in it. Find another one.”

“I could get a fabulous fur coat and accessories to go with it and keep me warm,” Pansy argues.

“Fine, do whatever you want.”

…

…

Pansy wears the dress. She finds a pink fur coat to go with it that’s not especially warm, but it looks great. The play is sort of funny, in the end, and Daphne’s shoulders loosen as she laughs, her fight with Astoria slowly forgotten.

…

…

The thing about traveling all the time is that it becomes less fun as time goes on. Pansy is sick of moving around all the time. The school year is over, now. Astoria is done and none of the people that Pansy cares about remain. The trails are still going on, but more of them are over and done with—people are getting back to their lives now. Pansy still feels like they’re living in limbo.

“Let’s go back,” she offers, mid-way through July. “For a bit. See Ria. Draco.”

“Ugh,” Daphne groans. The two of them still haven’t really made up fully, but from the look on Daphne’s face, she wants to. “Fine.”

…

…

Pansy’s mother is livid and bored.

She cups Pansy’s face in her palms and tells her that her complexion looks terrible, she’s put on weight, her nails look ghastly.

Pansy rolls her eyes and goes to Draco’s house.

It’s deathly quiet. Mr. Malfoy is like a specter hanging about upstairs. Narcissa gives Pansy a long look and then disappears, leaving Pansy and Draco alone in the sitting room. “Merlin,” Pansy hisses into her tea.

“Shut it,” Draco orders.

“So… he’s not going to…”

“Potter spoke on their behalf,” Draco says, curtly. Pansy raises her eyebrows but says nothing. “How’s Daphne?” Draco asks.

“A twat. How’s Blaise?”

“The same,” Draco says, ghost of a smile at the corner of his lips.

“Crabbe and Goyle?”

“Azkaban.”

“What?” Pansy gapes.

“They fought with the Aurors when they came for their parents. Cursed them out like idiots. Made their beds.” His shoulders twitch, as if it bothers him to say it. Pansy knows that to anyone that doesn’t know him as well as she does, it would look like he was just disgusted with his former friends. He always had a strange relationship with those two. They were more lackeys than friends. Pansy doubts that they would have stayed close after school even without the war.

“Fucking idiots,” Pansy breathes. “Who else?”

“Flint and his parents. Millicent and Tracey ran with theirs, haven’t heard a word.”

“What, really?” Pansy had no idea. It feels impossibly strange to think of the girls that she shared a room with for six years just… gone without a word. It was always her and Daph and then the two of them, more than it was the four of them together, but, it _was_ the four of them together. Pansy sips at her tea and burns her tongue and says nothing.

“Terence Higgs, Pucey, Rosier, and the Carrow twins.”

“Fuck,” Pansy says. “I missed a lot.”

“Leaving for a year will do that,” Draco says, slight edge to his tone.

“Want to come along?”

“No,” he says. Definitive. Pansy finds herself disappointed. She loves Daph. Daph is easier than Draco, but, she’s always loved him more. They met first, it only seems fair.

“You could, just for a bit,” she offers. “Like Theo.”

“My parents need me here,” he says, something wistful to his tone. Pansy doesn’t press him any further. “Blaise will come if you ask him,” Draco says, like an offering.

“Yeah, alright,” Pansy says, and reaches over and takes Draco’s tea out of his hands, sipping it pointedly while he pouts.

…

…

Astoria and Daphne make up. Pansy waltzes into Astoria’s bedroom to find her with a knife in her hands, Daphne’s palm dripping blood onto the carpet.

“Merlin, fuck,” Pansy hisses. “If you're gonna off her, at least floo me to say goodbye.”

Daphne rolls her eyes. “She’s not killing me. We’re performing a blood oath.”

“Merlin, you two are dramatic,” Pansy says, and flops down onto Astoria’s bed. She winces as Astoria slices open her own palm and then clasps her hand with her sister’s. They lock eyes and knock their foreheads together as Pansy watches, alarmed.

“Promise?” Astoria says.

“Promise,” Daphne agrees.

“Being an only child is wonderful,” Pansy declares and walks out of the room to find some biscuits.

…

…

Astoria and Blaise come along for the rest of the summer. August is a long lovely drawl of beaches and lounging in the sun and Astoria’s bright, joyful laughter. Blaise even cracks a smile here and there. It ends far too soon, Astoria claiming she has to go back to say goodbye to Granger, off to some muggle university.

Daphne holds her tongue and punches Blaise in the stomach before he says anything. Pansy looks down at the sisters’ palms, the little jagged scars forming and presses her lips together.

“Come back soon,” she whispers into Astoria’s ear, hugging her tightly. “Daph’s been driving me insane.”

Astoria laughs and kisses her forehead. “Be nice.”

“I’m not nice.”

“You are,” Astoria says. “You just don’t want anyone to know it but me.”

“Get out of here, idiot,” Pansy orders and Astoria _apparates_ away, beaming at Pansy till she disappears. Blaise saunters over, giving Daph a minute to collect herself and looping his arm around Pansy. It’s strange. Blaise is not one for physical affection. He’s not one for much affection at all, usually. He likes to be seen as aloof and fabulous, above them all. It drives Theo crazy. Pansy and Draco have had to hold them back from beating the snot out of each other a few times.

“This is ghastly,” Blaise declares, looking out at the sea.

“The _sea_ is ghastly,” Pansy scoffs. She’s ready to shove him in it if he insults her ocean any further.

“It is.” Blaise nods. “It’s too hot here. I want cold dramatic English seas with rocks.”

Pansy grabs hold of Blaise around the middle and _apparates_ so that they’re right at the edge of the water. Blaise is screeching and Daphne is hollering at them from up at their blankets. Pansy dunks Blaise underneath the water, the salt stinging her skin, his arms thrashing about and trying to shove her off. She holds her ground but loosens her grip so he can pop up to breathe.

“You fucking bitch!” he screams.

Daphne laughs and he throws a piece of seaweed in her direction.

“Do you love the sea now?” Pansy asks.

Blaise shoves her under until Daph comes and rescues her from drowning.

…

…

They spend the fall in Maine.

Blaise hangs around. He and Pansy go shopping in Boston every day and come back and parade around their little seaside cabin in fabulous clothes, Daphne only giving them half-hearted thumbs up and rolling her eyes in between. Neither of them cares, they look fucking delectable.

Blaise returns to London by the holidays, unwilling to leave his mother alone for the duration. Pansy calls him a prat but she gives him her favorite pink fur coat as she does it. Blaise gives her a genuine smile in return and a kiss on her forehead.

She doesn’t know why people keep kissing her there.

…

…

They spend the holidays in New York.

Christmas Day, they _apparate_ home. Pansy sits in her manor with her mother and has a feast of which she eats exactly none of and drinks until she’s glassy and warm, ignoring her mother’s comments on the Malfoys and _that Potter boy_ until Daphne and Astoria come to collect her. The three of them go find Draco and together, they go for a night walk around Wiltshire. Pansy is bundled up but still looking like she could conquer a runway, if she wanted, and she loops her arm with Draco’s without a second thought. Daphne and Astoria are bickering softly up ahead and Draco watches them, silent.

“Do you ever wonder what it would be like if we had siblings?” he asks, out of nowhere.

Pansy looks up and him and rolls her eyes. “We do, idiot,” she says and pinches his arm.

Draco makes a face at her. “No, I mean really.”

“So do I,” Pansy argues.

“We’ve had sex,” Draco says, rather matter-of-factly. It’s impressive. Every single time that the boy has mentioned anything in relation to sex before in his life he’s gone beet red and barely been able to form the words. Repression is his middle name. “We cannot call ourselves siblings when we have had intimate relations with each other.”

 _His usual name for it._ “We gave each other oral a few times to see what it was like and if we wanted to date,” Pansy says, blunt. Draco reacts as he always does and winces, unable to meet her eye. “The one time that we actually went all the way and did it, you cried halfway through.”

 _“Pansy,”_ he hisses, checking to be sure that Daphne and Astoria aren’t listening.

“They know,” Pansy tells him.

“Merlin —  _why?”_

“Because they’re my best friends,” Pansy shrugs.

“I thought that  _I_ was your best friend,” Draco counters.

“You are,” Pansy says, serious for a moment. “They just come very close.”

Draco considers this for a moment and says nothing, then, “We still can’t count ourselves as siblings. Those aren’t sibling activities.”

“It is for some,” Pansy says, eyebrows going up teasingly. "Especially for purebloods." Draco shudders and Pansy grins, knocking their shoulders together. “It’s not like it’s ever going to happen again. We can just be step-siblings if it makes you feel any better.”

“What the fuck, Pans?”

“I dunno. What was the point of this conversation?”

Draco nods towards the Greengrass sisters. “They have each other.”

Pansy goes deathly serious. Tugging her arm away and standing in front of him till he stops walking, she glares up at him till he looks her in the eye. “So do we. Best friends, step-siblings, fuck buddies, I don’t care what you want to call it. You have me, Draco. Always. Alright?”

He stares at her for a long moment, then nods. “Me too,” he says, voice hoarse and embarrassed. “I don’t want to have intimate relations ever again.”

“In your life? Or with me?” Pansy jokes.

“With you.”

“Oh brilliant, me neither.” Pansy hip-checks him and then runs after Astoria and Daphne. After a moment, Draco follows and the four of them sprint through the cold night, laughing and feeling younger than they have in years.

It’s a lovely holiday, all things considered.

…

…

The spend the duration of the winter in San Francisco. Pansy refuses to live in the snow if they don’t have to.  

They rent the upstairs apartment out of a large old wizard house out near the bay and Pansy learns how to cook. There’s an old bat of a witch that lives below them and Pansy hates her and is fascinated by her all at once. She has an insult on the end of every sentence and all her words come out as if she’s above you in every way.

Pansy loves her.

She goes downstairs every morning to check that the old woman hasn’t kicked the bucket yet and learns how to cook delicious concoctions. Mix of spellwork and muggle style, which Pansy raises an eyebrow at exactly once before she gets a cursed splinter and a lecture about Gilda’s squib sister. They work on one dish after another until Pansy has more than twenty memorized and perfected.

Daphne finds Gilda crass and refuses to step foot inside her home after the initial cookie tasting invite. Pansy rolls her eyes and takes her coffee out of the kitchen, ignoring Daphne’s remarks. She isn’t complaining when she eats the food that Pansy brings back upstairs.

They’re fighting a lot more, these days. Going on two years traveling mostly one-on-one seems to bring that out in a person. Pansy can feel the end date to this road trip looming off in the distance. Growing closer each new day they manage not to kill each other.

…

…

Spring brings more changes. Daphne starts going out with a wizard boy who lives a few blocks off that she met at a coffee shop and Pansy spends most of her time in Gilda’s apartment. Draco _apparates_ over for a weekend and Pansy takes him everywhere, showing him the seals in the bay, her favorite muggle burrito place, a chocolate shop that she knows he will love, and she takes him to a queer club.

It’s wizards only, Pansy ventured into one muggle club and felt so awkward and so out of place and so annoyed with all of her emotions that she screamed at a woman and then left.

It wasn’t a great night.

Draco holds himself like he’s about to combust, limbs folded into himself as tightly as he can manage and still have his palm around a drink. He watches the men and women with a mixture of alarm, arousal, and disgust—Pansy feels mostly the same. English pureblood families aren’t exactly known for their physical displays of affection. Not even in private. Sometimes, when Pansy loops her arm with Draco’s or holds Daphne’s hand in public, she feels scandalous. Like she’s stating something to everyone within the vicinity of them.

Now, she touches him lightly, directing him towards a small empty booth and ignoring the way that he jumps and then settles down into the booth with his eyes on the exit the entire time.

“We can leave if you hate it,” she tells him, no judgment.

He shakes his head though, blowing out a puff of air that catches his scarf. “No — I, it’s fine.”

“D’you wanna dance?”

“Um… no. I think not.”

“Okay.”

“Do you?” he asks, alarmed.

“Merlin, no,” Pansy scoffs. “I don’t know how to dance like that.”

Draco smiles then and looks out at the sea of bodies, grinding together. “We could waltz,” he offers.

Pansy grins at him, remembering their childhood lessons. They were the best of all the other families—Millie was deathly jealous. “Once it slows down,” Pansy agrees. “How’s your mum?” she asks a few minutes later.

Draco shrugs one shoulder. “Fine, I suppose. All things considered. How’s yours?”

“Oh, you know her. She’s always fine.” Draco’s mouth dips into a frown, but he doesn’t comment further. Pansy’s grateful. She doesn’t love her parents the way that Draco loves his. And her mother certainly doesn’t love Pansy the way that Narcissa loves Draco. It is what it is. Pansy has never dwelled on it much.

Not in a long time, at least.

“Come on,” he says, noticing the song change. He holds a hand out to her and Pansy chugs the last of her drink. She hisses as the liquid hits the back of her throat painfully and takes his hand, expertly sliding into place and feeling her spine straighten in response the moment that his palm graces her lower back. The song begins, a slow one, but certainly not built for a waltz. They spin around the dance floor regardless, reveling in the strange and confused and impressed looks that they receive.

A man is very clearly checking Draco out and Pansy nods over towards him. Draco goes beet red and shakes his head, his palm tightening around her waist.

The boy’s sexual repression is disappointing. Pansy has never seen him give anyone interest beyond initiating their very first kiss. He made out with Blaise during a drunken night in fifth year that Pansy thought might go somewhere but never did. Blaise has harbored a small crush ever since, but no one talks about it. Tracey always pestered Pansy about whether or not she _actually_ liked Draco or lay any claim to him, and if not, could she go for it? Pansy told her to fuck off and do whatever she wanted all in one breath, and the next thing that she knew, the two of them were holding hands in the halls for a week. Pansy burning with a cold jealous pain inside her gut that she didn’t understand or know what to do with—she and Daph had loads and loads of sex, that week. After, everyone pretended that it never happened—Tracey most of all. Draco clearly was the one to call things off, then.

Whenever any adult or someone older in Slytherin commented on his love life (or lack of one), Draco would sort of shrug and nod towards Pansy and never explain any further. She’s known that they could easily grow up and marry each other and their parents would be happy about it—they’d probably be happy too, is the thing. Despite having no desire to get Draco naked ever again, Pansy can sort of see it. She still figures it will probably happen, eventually.

 _If_ she does get married, it will probably be to Draco. He’s her best friend, after all, why not?

…

…

Gilda dies in April.

Pansy does not know what is happening but the next thing that she knows Daphne’s arms are around her and she’s making these shushing noises and Pansy just wants to tell her to shut up whoever is making that awful keening sound, because it’s giving her a headache and she’s sad about Gilda.

Then she realizes that the noise is coming from her.

Daphne panics and floo calls Astoria. Pansy can’t stop making that noise, she’s _really_ trying. It’s unseemly and embarrassing and uncalled for—she’s known Gilda all of four months.

And yet—

Astoria _apparates_ into their living room with her eyes wide and Ginny _fucking_ Weasley in tow. Pansy cannot stop having a nervous breakdown and Ginevra Weasley is in her house, looking at her with something like pity.

“Fuck off,” Pansy snaps and then sobs harder.

Astoria wraps her spindly body around Pansy and holds tight. She presses their temples together and hums, some tune that Pansy doesn’t know the words to, but feels familiar. Pansy ignores Daphne and Ginny, hovering anxiously above them and just focuses on Astoria’s voice. Her hands. The warmth of her skin pressed up tight against Pansy’s and remembers that she is alive. They all are. Gilda’s not but Gilda was always going to die soon. She’s not nineteen. She didn’t live through a war—not this one, anyway. She doesn’t have two years worth of unexamined feelings and guilt ready to boil over inside her body. She was just an old lady who lived a long full life and taught Pansy how to cook.

And now she’s dead, and Pansy isn’t okay.

Took her long enough to figure out, all things considered.

Once she manages to calm down, Astoria tugs her up and introduces her and Daphne to Ginny properly. She pinches both their arms as she does it. Pansy can tell that she’s serious, and she watches Astoria’s eyes flit down to the small scar on her sister’s palm and Daphne squares her shoulders, turns her body to Ginny’s and smiles. It’s almost a real one. “Hello,” she says, not passive-aggressive. It’s almost warm. “Astoria’s told me a lot about you.”

“Same here,” Ginny says, smirking.

“Oh, lovely,” Daphne says, gritting her teeth towards her sister.

Ginny bursts out laughing and loops her arm across Astoria’s shoulder. Both Pansy and Daphne visibly react at the strange image—it occurs to Pansy just how few positive interactions she’s had with Gryffindors. She straightens up and plasters on a smile, the one reserved for her friends when they’re running on thin ice. Ginny reacts only for a moment and Pansy reminds herself that Astoria loves this girl, shifting her smile to exude more warmth. The Dark Lord lost—it’s a brand new day and all that bullshit.

Beside her, Astoria beams.

…

…

They go home.

Neither of them ever intended the road trip to last for two years anyway, and Pansy is sick of living out of hotels and short-term leases where they can’t do much to make their mark on the home. Astoria doesn’t ask, but Daphne and Pansy can tell that the arguments with their parents are getting worse—she doesn’t want to leave her sister alone anymore.

Plus, annoyingly, Pansy misses England.


End file.
